MAC Performance Analysis for Reliable Power-Line Communication Networks with ARQ Scheme

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Computer Networking
• Signal Processing

Background:

• Power-Line Communication (PLC) networks are crucial for industrial IoT and home networking due to cost-effectiveness and coverage.
• The Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) scheme enhances transmission reliability in PLC networks by enabling data frame retransmissions.
• Existing performance analyses of PLC Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols, like IEEE 1901, often overlook the impact of the ARQ scheme.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an analytical model for investigating the MAC performance of the IEEE 1901 protocol in reliable PLC networks.
• To specifically address the impact of the ARQ scheme on IEEE 1901 MAC performance.
• To provide a comprehensive evaluation framework for reliable PLC network performance.

Main Methods:

• Established a PLC channel model considering Rayleigh/Log-normal fading, non-Gaussian noise, and the ARQ scheme.
• Utilized Renewal theory and Queueing dynamics to model transmission attempts in unsaturated environments with finite buffer sizes.
• Derived closed-form expressions for IEEE 1901 MAC metrics, incorporating the ARQ scheme's influence.

Main Results:

• Developed a novel analytical model for IEEE 1901 MAC performance in reliable PLC networks with ARQ.
• Derived closed-form expressions for key MAC performance metrics, accounting for ARQ.
• Demonstrated the convergence property of the proposed analytical model.
• Validated the model's accuracy through performance evaluation and verification.

Conclusions:

• The proposed analytical model accurately assesses the MAC performance of IEEE 1901 in reliable PLC networks with ARQ.
• The study provides valuable insights into optimizing PLC network reliability and performance.
• This work bridges the gap in current research by integrating ARQ scheme analysis into PLC MAC performance evaluation.